One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other 
QUESTION: I'd like to ask you, Mr. President -- your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is: Why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, your Cabinet officers, former Cabinet officers, intelligence people and so forth -- but what's your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil, the quest for oil. It hasn't been Israel or anything else. What was it?No president ever wants war, Helen. Bush was forced into it. Forced by how Saddam kept trying to find new ways to say he no longer had any banned weapons. Forced by the inspectors and how they were directing the destruction of Iraqi missiles.BUSH: I think your premise, in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist -- that I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect.
QUESTION: And...
BUSH: Hold on for a second, please. Excuse me. Excuse me. No president wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true.
You can't let that kind of cooperation go unpunished. Besides, Bush's "not wanting to go to war," turns out to look very like wanting to go to war.
A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.
BUSH: Helen, excuse me. That's where -- Afghanistan provided safe haven for Al Qaida. That's where they trained, that's where they plotted, that's where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans. I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council. That's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, Disarm, disclose or face serious consequences. And therefore, we worked with the world. We worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny the inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did. And the world is safer for it.The world said "disarm," and what did Saddam do? He disarmed.
The inspectors "destroyed everything and said, 'Iraq completed 95 percent of their commitment,' " Saddam said at one meeting. "We cooperated with the resolutions 100 percent and you all know that, and the 5 percent they claim we have not executed could take them 10 years to (verify)."Don't think for a minute that we still have WMD," he told his deputies. "We have nothing."
Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, no doubt about it. A strong man propped by several external governments, including that of the United States, to provide leverage against Iran. But there's no doubt about one thing: Saddam did cooperate with the inspectors.
Even as US forces were lining up to invade, Saddam went along with the destruction of missiles that might have been used to defend his forces against that invasion. How much more cooperative can someone possibly be?
- There were no WMD.
- Saddam was not out there saying that there were.
- Inspectors were in the country, not "kicked out" until they left ahead of the US invasion.
- Saddam was cooperating with the inspectors.
- Bush was determined to invade no matter what was found.
How long with the media allow Bush to blatantly lie in the face of all evidence? Not dodge, not avoid, not stumble or hedge his bets. Lie. Lie from one end of his statement till the end. It's not a matter of differing beliefs or of viewpoint. This is corrupt to its core, prevarication aforethought, deceitfulness in the first degree.
At this point, if the press does not convict Bush of his absolute disregard for anything approaching honesty, they will be convicting themselves of irrelevance.
KEYWORDS: Bush, Blair, Iraq, Helen Thomas
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